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40 years since man landed on the Moon

It's been 40 years since Neil Armstrong said those famous words "One small step for man, One giant leap for mankind..."

From Cape Canaveral (then Cape Kennedy) in Florida over half a million people watched as three astronauts (Neil A. Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins) were boosted towards the first lunar landing.

Coming eight years after President Kennedy's speech to Congress in 1961, in which he unveiled the Apollo programme "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." Half a billion people watched on television as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin moved about on the lunar surface with its gravity one-sixth that of earth's.

Since 20 July 1969 only five more missions took man to the moon, not forgetting Apollo 13, which is famous for not getting there and the heroic efforts needed to save the crew. The last mission was Apollo 17 on December 11, 1972 by Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt.

This begs the question, why haven't we been back to the moon since? Landing on the moon was a magnificent achievement for mankind and from which we have made many discoveries.

The 'space race' continues, but what will we achieve in the next 40 years?